Up to now, a printing method utilizing magnetic ink medium has been suggested as a small-sized and low cost non-impact type printing method. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 96541/77 describes a thermal transfer method wherein a magnetic attraction force acts on ink on a transfer medium corresponding to heat image by a magnetic means which is provided apart from a heat supply means. One of the ink media utilized in such method is described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 36596/84.
However, when the transfer medium described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 36596/84 is employed for the printing method described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 96541/77, ink is not transferred onto transfer paper sufficiently when magnetic force acts on the transfer medium to achieve transfer. This results in printing a broken line when a solid line is required, and normal letter form is not achieved when literal form is required.
This method is particularly disadvantageous and results in poor transfer which becomes more noticable when transfer paper having inferior surface smoothness is utilized.
Therefore, in order to solve the above disadvantages, the object of the present invention is to achieve high quality letter and image printing even on the transferred medium having inferior surface smoothness and to display completely the advantages of printing apparatus utilizing magnetic ink medium which conducts printing utilizing magnetic force.